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Time is money for Airport passengers

07/12/2012

It’s a well-known saying that time is money, and now we know how much for business travellers. Research by London City Airport [LCY] has found that the average person travelling through the airport values one hour of their time at £189.25. That’s roughly the price of a return flight to Paris, dinner for two with drinks at The Ritz, a round of golf at Gleneagles, or a Vivienne Westwood watch.

Almost 30 per cent of respondents flying out of LCY, the only airport in the city of London, valued their time at more than £200 per hour, and 18 per cent at more than £300. An impressive eight per cent of those flying into LCY valued their time at more than £500 per hour.

The research looked at all elements of a passenger’s experience in the airport and the overwhelming finding in all categories was the importance of speed, efficiency and convenience.

Matthew Hall, Chief Commercial Officer at London City Airport said: “With people’s time being so valuable, it’s little wonder that they want to be able to get through check-in and to their departure gate, or off the runway and through arrivals as quickly as possible. We offer a 20 minute check-in and 10 minute arrival, which is one of the reasons LCY is so popular with business travellers. A person who flies four times a month could save around eight hours by flying through LCY, which equates to more than £1,500.

“However, it’s not all about saving money. The things you can do with that extra time are priceless. For frequent travellers the less time spent in the airport, the more time they can spend at home with their loved ones. Many of those surveyed talked of spending more time with their families and being able to put their children to bed.”

Almost two thirds [60%] of respondents flying out of London City Airport said that their flight had been booked by an assistant, secretary or other colleague, with only 33 per cent booking their own flight. This perhaps helps to explain why online check-in was not considered more important in the survey as this part of the process is completed for them .

The ability to use a smartphone or tablet as a boarding pass was not considered to be very important to respondents. However, it is likely that this will come to be expected as a standard service offering.

Hall continued: “Services such as online check-in and electronic boarding passes may not seem to be a priority, but they help to save time and make a passenger’s journey as smooth and easy as possible. They would undoubtedly be missed if they were not available. In addition, at LCY we have introduced self-bag-tagging and self-drop options to put passengers in control of their transition through the airport and speed things up even more.”